Church of Santa María la Mayor

Leaving Gibraltar, we headed inland, up in the mountains to Ronda. This is a former Islamic stronghold that was taken during the reconquista in 1486. This is a great little town, as you will see in subsequent postings. Our first stop upon arrival was the Church of Santa María la Mayor. And it is a truly amazing place.

The altar shown above is not the main altar. This is the one at the back of the church.



It is ringed, in the usual fashion, with chapels. Each seems to be more ornate and amazing that the rest.

This church was intended to be much larger, but the church bigwigs shut that down. Can't have a small provincial village out-shining the big cities now can we? So we have a church with no transept and a shorten nave. But the locals got the height they wanted. Notice that the columns below are traditional, classical column with large capitals. These capitals were added to get the roof higher in spite of the church telling them to limit the height.

Here, finally, is the centerpiece of the of the main altar. Our Lady and an angel in an intricate carved wooden enclosure.

This is placed in an ornately carved stone alcove in the center of a large wall.

the images of Mary are abundant and varied. All are ornate and amazing.

Here's a view looking toward the back from the front altar. Here you can see the immense wooden choir that was added later. Behind it is the altar you saw in the first image.

The pulpit is, like many other items in the place, carved from stone.

Looking across the church where the transept would be if there were on, we see this impressive view. The chandelier is sized and styled to fit the space nicely.

It is such a large and intricate space that standing here just leaves me dumbfounded.

Looking upward from beneath the chandelier gives a good view of the ceiling.

Interestingly, there are spiral stairs just outside the main space that lead up to the roof. From there, I got a view of the surrounding town and countryside. But there is also an opening to step through to look down on the front of the church to get this unusual view of the space.

Not the sort of place you expect to find in a town of fewer than 35,000.